


Security In The Brush Of A Hand

by BBUBear



Category: Lord of the Rings (Movies)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 03:36:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/605398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BBUBear/pseuds/BBUBear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Are you going to leave me?"</p>
<p>"No, Merry. I'm going to look after you."</p>
<p>Pippin has never been around dying people. He doesn't know how to prevent someone from dying. But he does his best.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Security In The Brush Of A Hand

**Author's Note:**

> This began as me ranting to a friend while watching Return Of The King one 6AM when I should have been sleeping. It then turned into a drabble when a .gif set of the exact scene came up on my dashboard the next day. It's finally been turned into a fic of sorts.
> 
> Title taken from Jim Butcher's White Night.

_"Are you going to leave me?"_

_"No, Merry. I'm going to look after you."_

 

I'm going to look after you. That’s a lot to ask coming from a Hobbit who’s never been in battle, who’s never truly had to be around a dying person. Gandalf’s falling was so fast, Pippin wasn’t there for Boromir’s and when Frodo got stabbed, he was in the safe care of Aragorn. The only time Pippin ever came to someone close to someone dying was years before they had left the Shire. It had been old Ferumbras III Took, who had been there before Bilbo went off on his adventures and was there long after, now tucked up in his Smial. Pippin had only been allowed to come in and see him because his mum had decided that old Fembras didn't appear too sickly and wouldn't scare Pippin, who despite his protests of being grown up, was still barely a tween.

 

Pippin himself thought that it was about time the old codger dropped off.

 

But this? This is different. This isn't some old relative who Pippin never really liked, only looking slightly peeved that it's his turn to go. This is his Merry. His most beloved older cousin who he spat up on the first time they met when he was only a babe and then spent the next twenty years of his life being told that he had to make up for it (he eventually found out that Merry had made up the event in order to get Pip's best apples when they went to the orchard). It's his Merry and he’s hurt and there's blood on his face and and he's probably dying for all Pippin knows. He's going to take care of his Merry if it kills him, because after all they've been through together this past year, after everything, he's not losing him like this.

 

So he grabs the nearest cloak off the ground, forcing himself to look past the rips and the blood stains, _hopingwishingpraying_ that they're not Merry's, and uses it to cover his fellow Hobbit. Keeping warm isn't the first thing Merry is thinking about. Nor is the second or even the third. He’s just snuck into a battle, helped kill a Nazgul and saw Eowyn and Theoden being attacked by the thing. Merry probably wouldn't be worrying about being cold, even if he could feel anything other than the throbbing of his arm. But Pippin wasn't aware of any of that and if he was, what else was there to do? Nobody around can help them, they have more important things to tend to than two little halflings, huddled together in the midst of a battlefield, so he does what he knows.

 

It’s what Merry did every time Pippin was stupid enough to play outside when a chill came through the Shire. There wasn't any snow, never any snow, but he could see his own breath and would pretend to be a dragon, like in Bilbo's stories. The ponds would begin to frost over and he would put his toys on the flimsy ice just to test how well it would hold. It wasn't until he'd do something stupid like decide to go into the pond after the toys that sunk that Merry would come and fetch him. He would wrap him up in blankets and hold him by the fire until he stopped shivering. That fool of a took.

 

This time, Pippin can’t afford to be the fool. There’s so much going on and despite this battle being over, they’re still more danger than ever, out here in the open. So Pippin does what he knows. Wraps him up and tells him it’ll be okay.

 

It’s a while before anyone comes to help them, all the others too busy checking their own dead, hoping that not everyone who's dead seems so. But those who seem dead stay dead, both those of their own men and those of Sauron's. As they wait, Pippin speaks of Faramir, of how similar he is to his brother, yet how entirely different, about the beautiful White City and it's never ending gates, and once he notices Merry’s eyes begin to glaze over, tells him of Denethor and his madness, making sure to employ every storytelling tactic he knows to keep Merry with him.

 

If he saw the tears leaking from Merry’s eyes when his arm accidentally got jostled, Pippin didn’t comment, but he made sure to stay as still as possible as he spoke.

 


End file.
